"Right around Christmastime I was sitting in a parking lot and I felt like
I just couldn't get out of the car," she tells Elle magazine
about the moment of panic she experienced a month after the couple's breakup in October 2006. "It was like, I can't get out of the car."

Witherspoon, however, says she found strength in realizing that so many
others have also made it through the pain of a divorce.

"I thought, Okay, half of the parking lot has dealt with this. More than
half of the parking lot has dealt with this," she tells the magazine in its
October issue. "Okay, let's make it a little bigger. Half of this city has dealt with this. Okay, let's make it a little bigger – half of this country, until I finally got out of the car."

The actress likens the memory to a scene from her Oscar-winning role in the
Johnny Cash biopic: "There's this moment in Walk the Line where
June Carter says, 'I was never aware of how much I was seen.' I was very
aware of how much I was seen. It was this moment of self-discovery and loss
of identity and who was stepping out of the car, you know? Who is that
person?"

And those close to her say both the triumphs and losses in her life recently
have changed Witherspoon. "She's a bit more liberated professionally and
personally," says Andy Tennant, who directed her in Sweet Home
Alabama. "If you're going through stuff in your life, you hope for the
best and struggle to keep it together, and when it collapses – after
the initial shock – you look around and find out who you are."

Despite Witherspoon's image of being a woman in control, the mother of two
scoffs at the notion. "Oh, come on, man!" she says. "I wouldn't be able to
do what I do if I were [always in control]. I wouldn't be able to
have the empathy or the capacity to understand different lives."

Still, the actress, 31, prides herself on her Southern values – and
not being like some of the other young stars making headlines in Hollywood.

"Everybody is hung out to dry now," she says of the coverage of young
stars. "It's one thing if you're up for it and you want it, and you go out
without your panties on. But if you're wearing your panties – gosh darn
it, leave me alone!"